The second lesson from Good to Great by Jim Collins  is that it’s all about the people!  Get the right people on board in your company or organisation first.   He uses the analogy of a bus.  Get the right people on board the bus first and then decide where to go with the bus.  You would imagine that this would be done the other way round.  Decide where to go in the bus (your vision/mission) and then recruit the right people, but that was not the case as was discovered through the research.  The right people don’t need to be closely managed as they are already highly motivated to produce the best results and be part of something great.  The corollary to getting the right people on the bus is to get the wrong people off the bus.

When it came to the issue of compensation of staff, compensation is important to keep the right people on the bus but should not be used to get the right behaviours from the wrong people.  This applies at all levels of an organisation.

People are not your most important asset.  The right people are.

It just goes to show the importance of getting the right people, no matter what,  and getting rid of the wrong ones (disruptive people).  The question of course is what are the characteristics of the right people and how do you or I make sure we are one of the right people?  This is an issue which I will explore further in the coming weeks.

Best Wishes,

Tom

PS More lessons from the book next week.  In the meantime have a look at Jim Collins’s website for further information and resources.

Grab your copy of Good to Great from Amazon: